What in the Yamhill: Joel Perkins, founder of Lafayette

News-Register file photo##In 2015, Eva Branden, Adison Hansford and Keith Broden, then students at Wascher Elementary School, check out the new Joel Perkins memorial plaque after a dedication ceremony in Lafayette’s Joel Perkins Park.

Throughout Yamhill County, streets, parks and memorials are named after people. For many locals, some of these names are well known, but the person behind the name may be fuzzy or forgotten. This column will focus on what’s behind the namesakes to honor those who came before us and discover what in the Yamhill is the story.

Joel Perkins Park is one square block between Eight, Seventh, Jefferson and Market streets in Lafayette.

Perkins was the founder of the town, which was the original county seat (a fact locals like to remind McMinnville residents).

Perkins was 23 in 1844 when he left Lafayette, Indiana, with his family to travel the Oregon Trail.

He established Lafayette, naming it after his hometown. The Indiana city is named for Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman who fought in the U.S. during the American Revolution.

Perkins’s grandfather served under Lafayette, as did many others from the Indiana town. Perkins continued the tradition of honoring Lafayette, naming the Yamhill County town after him as well.

Perkins built the first Euro-American house and operated the first ferry in the Rogue River Valley in southern Oregon, near today’s Grants Pass.

During the Gold Rush of 1848, Perkins traveled to California, where he established a trading post to supply miners.

In 1849, Lafayette was platted, and a full block of land was dedicated as a public square, thus creating Joel Perkins Park and the county’s oldest city park.

Perkins married Laura Hawn, 15, and together they traveled back to California. On a return trip to Lafayette in 1865, Perkins was murdered in southern Oregon by a man named John Malone, who reportedly had fallen in love with Hawn.

Joel Perkins Park has been a gathering place for residents since at least 1850. It remains the center of Lafayette’s Fourth of July celebrations. Citizens start at Wascher Elementary School for the National Anthem before parading by bike or foot to the park.

The present park is slightly terraced because of the hill between Eighth and Seventh streets. It includes two play structures, green space, a pavilion, bathrooms and a flagpole. It is about an acre in size.